The artists featured in Photo Flux have radically transformed photography to express their own aesthetics, identities, and narratives. They are part of vital conversations about race and representation and provide an important foundation for emerging artists in the Getty Unshuttered teen program.
Organized by independent curator jill moniz, this exhibition builds on her multi-year collaboration with Getty Unshuttered and recognizes artists who have been traditionally under-and mis-represented by the Getty.
According to Ms. moniz, “My primary focus is to highlight the aesthetics and narratives created by these cultural makers that radically shift photography away from its racist underpinnings that have been used to immortalize Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples as monolithic stereotypes. Photo Flux is a reckoning with the art canon’s exclusivity, but it also is an invitation to extend the visual literacy of Getty visitors to include other impulses, intentions and imagery.”
“We are very grateful to jill for the important work she has done in our Unshuttered program, helping to develop the creative talents and social engagement of young artists,” says Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “Amidst last summer’s widespread calls for social justice, jill was the obvious person for us to engage to conceive, organize and curate an exhibition that addresses these critical issues and gives priority to the distinctive voices of artists. In challenging the way museums like the Getty present photography this is a new departure for us, one that we hope and believe can be built upon in the future.”
Among the works on view in Photo Flux is Support Systems (1984), by Todd Gray (American, born 1954), created in response to the ongoing institutional subjugation of black men, and used as a form of guerrilla protest at Exposition Park during the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles; Untitled (car and dog on Dozier) (about 1970) by George Rodriguez (American, born 1937) a historic image of the iconic Latino car culture of California; and Viki Eagle at Union Station (2016) by Pamela J. Peters (American, active since 2008) which dismantles the stereotype that indigenous people are immobile.
Launched in 2018, Getty Unshuttered is an arts education program driven by the personal passion and authentic voices of young photographers. It aims to be a catalyst for teens to connect with one another and to amplify their art and ideas, online and in real life. At the Getty Museum, students have collaborated with educators and Los Angeles-based artists, such as Star Montana and Rikkí Wright, who are both featured in Photo Flux, to develop photography portfolios centered on social topics that resonate in their own lives, such as LGBTQ+ pride, Black identity, foster families, religious tolerance, and hypermasculinity.
Photo Flux: Unshuttering LA will be on view May 25 through October 10, 2021, at the Getty Center Museum. Related programming includes Photography as Revolutionary Aesthetic: An LA Artist Conversation.